Sally McGrane

Sally McGrane was born in Berkeley, California and grew up in San Francisco. For the last decade, she has lived in Berlin. As a journalist, she writes for The New York Times, newyorker.com, Die Zeit, Monocle and many others. She has written about the "Elevator-Rescue Teams of Moscow" (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-elevator-rescue-teams-of-moscow); a German forester who says trees talk to each other (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-social-networks-too.html); and swimming in the river Spree (http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-07/flussbad-spree-pokal-museumsinsel-10nach8). "Moscow at Midnight," published in German as "Moskau um Mitternacht" is a spy novel. Max Rushmore, newly downsized from the CIA, is hired by a private contractor to return to Moscow in more or less his former capacity--albeit with less pay, minimal job security, and no health insurance. There, a routine inquiry into the accidental death of the beautiful nuclear waste disposal expert Sonja Ostranova turns into a journey that takes Max across Russia, from St. Petersburg to Novosibirsk, as he follows his only clue: A rare Siberian diamond.